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Michael Trimble

Why people shed tears of empathy: Evolution

It’s true that many mammals shed tears, especially in response to pain. Tears protect the eye by keeping it moist, and they contain antimicrobial proteins. But crying as an embodiment of empathy is, I maintain, unique to humans and has played an essential role in human evolution and the development of human cultures.

Within two days an infant can imitate sad and happy faces. If a newborn mammal does not cry out (typically, in the first few weeks of life, without tears) it is unlikely to get the attention it needs to survive. Around three to four months, the relationship between the human infant and its environment takes on a more organized communicative role, and tearful crying begins to serve interpersonal purposes: the search for comfort and pacification. As we get older, crying becomes a tool of our social repertory: grief and joy, shame and pride, fear and manipulation.

Tears are as universal (but less culturally contingent) as laughter, and tragedy is more complex than joy — an insight Tolstoy and many others have offered. But although we all cry, we do so in different ways.

Recent studies have suggested that pumice floats played an important role in the evolution of life on Earth since these “islands” can drift over long stretches of ocean, ferrying animals, plants and even colonies of microbes across water barriers.

The atheist engineer told me “I would have made humans able to get energy from solar power, which is all around us, instead of having to eat food meals or starve.

This atheist engineer obviously doesn’t know what he’s talking about. From where would the physical material come out of which our bodies are constructed? Even plants don’t run on solar power alone; they need nutrients from the soil. Photosynthesis is only one part of the equation. And how much surface area would humans require if we were to get all our energy from sunlight? Our resident biologist tells me that the average plant gets just under 14 food calories (14 kcal) per day per square meter of surface area. Plants do not have to move. They do not have to instantaneously interact with their environments. And, importantly, they do not have to think. These processes require tremendous amounts of energy (about 2,000 food calories per day). To get 2,000 food calories per day through photosynthesis, human beings would require a flat surface 36 feet by 36 feet, or the size of a modest home. This doesn’t include the requirements for extra energy to lug around this huge amount of extra mass plus the supporting structure required to hold it aloft!

A surface area of ~1500 square feet would have huge problems with heat management and all this photosynthesis would require a tremendous amount of water for the fixing of carbon and to account for water loss though the stomates that need to be kept open in order for carbon dioxide to get in (i.e., we would need roots). These are only the first considerations. What this person has proposed is nothing short of a total reengineering of what it means to be human. So what he is really saying is, “If I were to create humans, I would not create humans,” which is nonsensical.

Alan Wolfelt, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Colorado Medical School, works primarily with people who are mourning loved ones. “In my experience,” he says, “I have observed changes in the physical expressions following the expression of tears. Not only do people feel better after crying, they also look better.”

And according to Dr. William Frey, a biochemist and director of the Dry Eye and Tear Research Center in Minneapolis, Minn., one reason people might feel better after crying could be because they are “removing, in their tears, chemicals that build up during emotional stress.” Frey’s research indicates that tears, along with other bodily secretions like perspiration, rid the body of various toxins and wastes.

As far back as 1957, it was known that emotional tears are chemically different from tears that result from eye irritation. Emotional tears contain more beta-endorphins, some of our bodies’ natural pain relievers, and protein.

That the seemingly simple and common response of producing tears is enormously complex and, indeed, is an integral and necessary part of the miracle called the human body. Without tears, life would be drastically different for humans—in the short run enormously uncomfortable, and in the long run eyesight, so important for everyday life, would be blocked out altogether.

Tears are just one of many miracles which work so well that we take them for granted every day. And it is one more reason to realize that our marvellous body is not the result of evolutionary trial and error.

i don’t think believers in the big bang and evolution realize how ridiculous they sound to those of us who believe in a Creator. they laugh at us and think we sound silly, but they sound just as silly to us. the feeling is mutual.

Well, Lester. You could start by reading the article. Then you could examine the claims of the authors and refute, if possible, those claims.

That’s how it usually works.

Unless you’re fantasizing about a 15yo boy boinking a 12yo girl.

davidk on November 12, 2012 at 7:45 PM

What claims? Claims should have peer reviewed scientific studies behind them. That website has either references to itself or other creationist sources. As I said you can’t reason with magical beliefs. Waste of time.

Also, the same religion that tells you earth is 6000 years old tells you 15 year olds and 12 year olds should have babies for Jesus. It’s clear who’s fantasizing.

Just look at this thread if you want to know why Republicans lost the Asian vote. Asian parents are not going to spend 18 years making sure their kids get straight A’s in school to then turn around and vote for a party full of absolute morons who deny evolution.

Remember, people. Macro-evolution has been 100% proven even though every single bit of evidence contains words and phrases like “could be”, “possibley”, “might be”, ect.

Meanwhile, if you if think that ther eis a possibility that an intelligent being created this planet as we know with (with or without micro-evolution), you are a total moron even though intelligent design is duplicated every day through things like computer programs (create words where the creator can see it’s creation but it’s creation can’t see the creator and where nothing in the creation can go beyond the physics created but the creator can mess around beyond the physics in debug and such).

What claims? Claims should have peer reviewed scientific studies behind them. That website has either references to itself or other creationist sources. As I said you can’t reason with magical beliefs. Waste of time.

Also, the same religion that tells you earth is 6000 years old tells you 15 year olds and 12 year olds should have babies for Jesus. It’s clear who’s fantasizing.

lester on November 12, 2012 at 7:52 PM

Evolutionists are the greatest dancers ever.

You do not refute because you cannot refute. I’m talking about you, Lester. Not your non-peer reviewed buds who quote each other.

But it is you who belittled a 15yo who took responsibility for his actions. You who, without proof, suggested that the boy had sex with a twelve year old girl. An atrocious assumption which reveals the depth of your character.

Just look at this thread if you want to know why Republicans lost the Asian vote. Asian parents are not going to spend 18 years making sure their kids get straight A’s in school to then turn around and vote for a party full of absolute morons who deny evolution.

thphilli on November 12, 2012 at 7:57 PM

Yep, those kids who get home schooled or go to private school (both with a vast majority being taught by christians) sure are stuuuuupid. Sure would explain why they tend to do so much better in college and life.

I just wish all of these people who are so sure of their nonsense “creator” myths could be sat down and be rationally explained to what evolution actually is, how it works, and the evidence for it. And then have very single one of their inane questions or “points” answered and refuted by evidence. Of course, it wouldn’t accomplish anything. No amount of evidence can teach a stupid person that the earth and life didn’t magically appear.

Yep, those kids who get home schooled or go to private school (both with a vast majority being taught by christians) sure are stuuuuupid. Sure would explain why they tend to do so much better in college and life.

DethMetalCookieMonst on November 12, 2012 at 8:01 PM

They send the children to a christian college which continues teaching them nonsense.

You don’t want to check the sources because they’d demonstrate that you’re categorically, factually WRONG. And you know it.

Go ahead. Make another claim.

Good Lt on November 12, 2012 at 8:03 PM

Are you a bit insecure in your beliefs?
You’re trying to start an needless argument with someone on the Internet, who studied the evolution vs. intelligent design debate a long time ago, heard all the arguments, and made his decision. There is nothing new for me to consider.
You’re welcome to deny your Maker, but you will meet Him one day, as all of us will.

BTW, without all of those stuuuuuuuuuuuuupid christans having there stuuuuuuuuupid christian charities for the poor, imagine how much higher taxes would be (to this day there is rarely a secular charity out there and never an atheist one).

You’re trying to start an needless argument with someone on the Internet, who studied the evolution vs. intelligent design debate a long time ago, heard all the arguments, and made his decision. There is nothing new for me to consider.

Intelligent design is not ‘a theory’ in the scientific use of the word.

It’s an untenable religious proposition grounded in religious belief. It explains nothing. It has no applicability. It has no predictive power. It is unfalsifiable. It is supernaturally based, not naturally based.

It’s just creationism rebranded. This argument was decided in a federal case Kitzmiller v. Dover.

There is no evidence for “intelligent design” because ID is just creationism. And there is no evidence to support ANY religious creation stories (not just your preferred version).

Creationism is religion, not science.
ID is creationism, and is therefore religion and not science.